Nova Project #1 (17 page)

The man's good humor slips just enough for Miguel to see that while it isn't a mask, it could be. Something else lurks behind it, ready to be summoned at will. “I can absolutely assure you that you'll never guess at my motives,” he says, “but I promise you they are not publicity. I didn't give you a new heart so that you could skip off into the sunset to enjoy it. At least not yet. Yes, we need you. The competition is about testing new material, and we need good players to do that.”

“There are tons of people better than I am,” says Miguel. Painful to admit, but true. He's just arguing for the sake of it now; knowing he's not going to die anytime soon is a shot of adrenaline.

“An honorable thing to say.” The man's eyes narrow in the fading light. “And true, but we need players at as many levels and with as many skill sets as possible. You are
very
good for your age, particularly when you consider the unique obstacles with which you have had to contend.”

“Do I really have a chance to win?” That's the real question, the one he's wanted to ask since he guessed who the man was.

“A better than average one, and you can do it just because you want it. For the love of the game and your own skill, without this cloud hanging over your head. The game is about choices, it always has been. Left or right? But you've never truly had one, have you? I am curious how well you'll play when you do. I think, Mr. Anderson, that the game can teach you who you
are. That is, no longer someone sick, so who is it?” He pauses, mouth still open as if he isn't quite finished speaking.

Miguel jumps at the knock on the door. The man doesn't. Both look.

“Hey,” says Nick, not waiting for an invitation. “You okay? Hello,” he says, nodding at the man.

“Hello. I'll be going now. Think about what I said, Miguel.”

He and Nick wait until the room is empty. “Who was that?”

“Just another doctor,” Miguel lies.

“Gotcha.”

He talks to Nick without really listening, a stilted half conversation that can be attributed to the painkilling neuro tweaks and exhaustion, but he's relieved when Nick goes to find dinner and Anna. Let them spend as much time together as they can if they're going to disappear back into Chimera in a few days. The sunset that blazed behind the Gamerunner's back is gone now, the view from the window now a cloudless moonscape. He still doesn't know if it's real or fake, or if that matters. All that matters is that he's alive, and he can keep playing.

[C
assandra Burns] He needed a new
heart
?

[Danilo Viviani] That's crazy. A friend of mine failed his medical for having a bad back.

[Danilo Viviani] Wonder what makes
Miguel Anderson
so special.

[Lika Sergeyeva] He is pretty good. Using that orb on the horses was sweet.

[Thea Johansen] Waste of an orb, if you ask me. He should've kept it to save his life. He could've made his team take the risks with the horses. Who cares if one of them dies?

[Cassandra Burns] You seriously don't care if someone dies playing?

[Thea Johansen] Hey, no one forced them to sign up for this.

O
bligation. That's what he tells his parents: that he can't let his team down, he has to honor his commitment or whatever. The game will end for the rest of his team if he stops, he'll be ruining their chances. Parents are big on that stuff, they buy it even though he can tell they want to argue with him some more, tell him how pale and tired he looks. To Nick, he pretends there was never any doubt that he'd come back, and Nick runs off to find the others while Miguel paces the green room, waiting for official permission to leave. He wants to get downstairs. He wants to climb back into the bed and sleep. Time is curiously disjointed, both limitless and too short.

Discharged, he counts his steps down to the gaming room like he used to count heartbeats. Before he opens the doors, he stops, straightens his shoulders.

Chimera is fun. He would always have played it whether he needed a new heart or not. Everyone plays it. He would
always have entered the competition just to prove how good he is. Focus on that. Don't think about anything else.

The others are waiting inside. “I'm sorry,” he says, preempting them. “I should have told you all before.” He's still not sure be believes that, but it's what they want to hear, and he needs them to forgive him enough to keep playing.

“'Sokay, man,” Josh says. Grace shrugs. Leah gives him a stare that could nail two planks together. She hadn't visited him in the medical wing after that first day, when she had either decided not to yell at him or was forbidden to. He's fair game now. She turns away.

“What happens when you die?” Grace asks.

“Well, there are different theories . . .”

“No, you jackass,
you.
What happens to us?”

The Gamerunner had told him to keep his mouth shut, but Miguel thinks he can share this. They need to know. “The game ends for you guys. Leaders have to live for the team to play.”

“Then do you maybe want to warn us the next time you do something stupid that might kill you, so we can back you up? I don't give a damn what happens to you, but I'd like to keep playing, thanks.”

“I wonder why they didn't tell us that at the beginning.”

He looks at Josh. “Probably because if they had, we'd let you take more risks for us. Like, if you're replaceable, and I'm not, I'd hide behind you. Not much of a victory at the end for
me if you've done all the work. I'll warn you,” he assures Grace.

“Thanks so much.”

Sarcasm fits her like a tailored shirt. Whatever. He doesn't have to give her anything, but he will if the situation allows for it.

And if it doesn't, and things go badly, at least he won't ever have to hear her complain.

Might almost be worth it.

He had to study geography, so he's pretty sure he knows what's waiting under his fingertip, pressed to the fourth glowing spot on the overworld's globe. He's expecting the heat when the air changes and the room dissolves around him, but it hits him like a punch from Josh's metal arm.

Oh,
goody
. A desert. They haven't had one of those yet. He was hoping they wouldn't. These are bastard levels, he's hated every one he's ever played. Storms whip up with no warning, mirages fuck with your head, and the answer is never obvious. Plus while the sand doesn't leave the game with you, it feels like it does. Grainy, gritty, itchy. He always has to shower at least three times to wash off the illusion.

You are standing on top of a dune. The desert stretches as far as you can see in every direction. Footsteps lead to the north.

With the exception of that first day of the competition, in the overworld, and the laughter he doesn't want to think about,
Miguel has only ever heard the Storyteller speak the obvious truth, but that doesn't mean her implications can be trusted. Some truths mean:
Run the other way, as fast as you can. Leave your shoes if you have to.

And some lies invite you in for a cup of tea. They give good hugs and offer you a place to sleep for the night.

“What do we think?” he asks. Grace is annoying, possibly evil, but he's mindful of what he said to her, and she's not the only one whose good side he needs to find again. He's not likely to find a map for that anywhere in the sand. Leah is several feet away, her back turned.

“We could split up,” Josh suggests. “Shout if one of us finds something.”

They could. Miguel hesitates. That doesn't
feel
right, and they're already behind a whole bunch of the other teams. Have to make up the time Miguel spent in the hospital wing.

“We follow them,” he decides. What the hell. The footprints look human, and they have guns.
What the hell, if we're wrong, we're wrong.
He can play like that now.

Chimera thirst isn't real thirst—or it never used to be. Miguel isn't so sure anymore, the lines between the game and reality shimmer like mirages on the endless sand. It doesn't make sense that injuries sustained in the game can follow them outside and back again, but things like thirst and hunger don't. Either way, the scratching, clawing dryness at his throat is
as real as any thirst he's ever known. None of them speak as they trek through the desert, watched over by a sun glued to its highest point. It takes him an hour to confirm it is actually moving. No blue save points rise up from the dunes.

The desert is mesmeric. The sands, uniformity made of infinite difference, the repetitive motion of stepping across it. Lulled into contemplation, the Gamerunner's face ripples across Miguel's mind. To say there was something weird about him is to say Chimera's coding is sort of clever.

The problem is that Miguel is sure the Gamerunner is exactly who he claimed to be, that he was telling at least part of a truth, and that he is terrifyingly sane. Sometimes you hear about those companies run by reclusive madmen who go barefoot all the time, even in winter, and will drink only water with live grasshoppers in it. Whatever. Crap like that. But the Gamerunner didn't give off that “humor me, I'm a little warped” vibe.

He gave off that “excuse me while I look into your mind and see the thoughts you can't” vibe instead.

Heat is slowly baking him, but Miguel shivers.

What
is
the point of this game, this trek through endless sand? To make them all live another few decades. Money for the Gamerunner—both of them? Is it like climbing a mountain, and they did it just because they could, because a Chimera-shaped hole was there and they decided to fill it?

Despite the heat, the sweat running down his back, and the stink of it reaching his nostrils, the sand in his shoes and his hair, Miguel smiles. It doesn't
matter.
He can finally play the way he's always wanted to. He can run to see how far he'll go, not because he's being chased.

“What the hell are you doing?” Grace asks as he sprints down this dune, up the next. At the top he faces them, spreading his arms, daring them to catch up. Nick is the first to scramble to his side.

“What's that?” Nick gasps, pointing. A square shimmers on top of the next dune. Miguel shrugs, leaves Nick to wait for the others, and runs again, half expecting it to be a mirage when he gets there, but it's solid. A wooden crate, full of food and water. A collection of welcome pixels. And firewood. The next breath of wind carries the faintest thread of cold.

The footprints they've followed stretch into the distance. Sometimes the path is clear.

“Cache,” he says. “Summon tents.” And sleeping bags, ropes, anything else he can remember seeing in the cache that might be helpful. Josh and Grace build a fire as the first stars appear in a four-color sky, the reds, purples, oranges, blues of sunset.

“Let me help you with that.” He jogs across the sand to Leah, who needs no help with the tent. Wordlessly she hands him a pole. It probably takes longer with two of them than it
would with one. Anger seethes off her and touches him like the cold fingers of the settling night.

They eat, clustered around the fire, convincing the body in the gaming room it is fed and warm. Grace drops her plate and disappears into one of the tents, Josh following her a moment later. Miguel raises his eyebrows, Leah shrugs, Nick clears his throat and says he's going for a walk. Good friend.

Miguel tilts his head up. “I know it's a game, but look at that.” The sky is astonishing, a million pinpoints of light, as if the whole world is a gaming room and the stars are the sensors tracking his every move.

The silence is absolute.

“Are you going to talk to me?” Miguel asks.

“Maybe one day.”

“But not tonight.”

She laughs without a trace of humor. “No.”

Unreasonable anger warms him from the inside as the fire warms his skin. He gets it, sure, but it's not like he didn't have a reason.

“Let me know when you want to,” he says, standing, feet slipping on the sand as he climbs into one of the remaining empty tents. Shirt off, he watches the lights glow through his skin. Right now it is fusing with his flesh, taking him over.

He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he is awake when
the sun comes up, as quickly and spectacularly as it has gone down. The others get up, he sends the gear they don't need back to the cache, finds the trail of footprints.

More hours of walking. Of sweat and thirst and sand. Another square ripples on a faraway dune, and he thinks it's more food at first, but it's too big.

The lines of reality blur even more. They're already inside the game, they can't enter it again. A mirage, must be. First sign of madness: hallucinating ChimeraCubes where there are none.

Usually the people around you don't hallucinate the same thing.

“That's . . . meta. Or something. Makes my head hurt,” says Josh.

“It's not really possible, is it?” Leah asks.

Honestly, it probably is—at least possible to make them
feel
like they've gone into the game from within the game. Miguel's never set up that kind of loop in his sim, there's never been a reason to, but lines of code write themselves across his mind; he can see how it could be done.

The Cube doesn't waver and dissipate as they near, it's truly there. Still, when they reach the last of the footprints, Miguel closes his fingers around the door's handle to check. Solid.

Inside, coolness and shade are so absolute, so relieving, they can do nothing but stand in the entrance to relish it. That's
not helping them catch up. He focuses on one last breath of chilled air.

“Let's look around.”

As in other Cubes, at least the ones which haven't been altered for the competition, a second set of doors opens onto the corridors lined with gaming rooms, stairs at every corner. A map on the wall of the lobby usually shows which ones are free. Here, they all are. But every door he tries is locked. He presses his ear to one of them but can't hear anything. Rolling her eyes, Leah cocks her head, then shakes it. There's no one inside.

“Split up,” he says, pointing to the closest stairwell. “This could be like the fears, we have to be apart to work together. Message if you find an open one.”

Half an hour later he tells them to meet back in the entrance hall. He stomps there himself and leans against the wall, enjoying the cool concrete on his back. Time to think. He doesn't have many more half hours to waste. They're assuming that they're here to enter the gaming rooms and play. What else could it be?

The others join him, talk, wonder aloud. He ignores them, pushes their voices to background noise.

Way, way back during that long first summer after he started the game . . . It hadn't looked like this, but the principle could still apply.

“Do you remember that puzzle section on Two? In the original game?” he asks, scanning their faces for signs of recollection. Leah's eyes are the first to widen.

“You think it's a labyrinth?”

“It could be.”

“Actually”—she corrects herself—“that was a maze, not a labyrinth, but I see your point.”

“Aren't they the same thing?” asks Grace. Miguel remembers the fish. Grace is about to be sorry she wondered.

“No, a maze has several possible paths to the center, or wherever the end point is. A labyrinth has only one.”

“A-maze-ing.” Nick laughs. Leah flicks his shoulder, and envy twists Miguel's stomach. Sure, she's fine with Nick, even though he'd known Miguel's secret and kept it.

With no other ideas, the best—only—assumption is that the beginning is where they are, at the building's main entrance. He has no clue where to go from here, how the puzzle is unlocked to take them to the middle of this weird Cube in the middle of the desert. Chimera puzzles are always solved with some kind of code, but it could be numbers, names, anything. The best the others can come up with are the things he's already thought of: their birthdays, people important to them.

Sometimes they need maps. Have they found any more? “Yes,” says Grace reluctantly. “I found one when I was alone on that fear thing, but it's to something outside, I think. No
straight lines, and this place is all straight lines.”

Now she tells them. He wonders how many times they're allowed to get it wrong and how obvious it should be. A quick check of his feed tells him all teams but one, apart from his, have made it through, which was to be expected. He knows that they're behind. That healing from a heart transplant takes longer than someone's having an arm or a finger or a patch of skin replaced.

He grits his teeth. It doesn't look as if the other teams spent too long solving the problem. Much to Miguel's dismay, the other team still stuck isn't Zack's.

“There has to be a hint here somewhere,” Miguel says, pressing random spots on the walls, looking for hidden panels.

“Maybe we missed something outside, or in another level.”

“God, Josh, don't say that. We'll never find it,” says Leah.